ISIS Leader Was Member of 'Moderate' Muslim Brotherhood

Yet another piece of evidence tying misled members of the United States government to the Islamic State’s roots has come to light. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most authoritative clerics in the Muslim community – he has his own program on Al Jazeera and is chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars -- asserts in a new interview that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the head-chopping, infidel-crucifying Islamic State, was once a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

[T]his youth [al-Baghdadi] was from the start among the top ranks of the Brotherhood, but he was inclined to [positions of] leadership and so forth. … Then, after he spent years in prison [for Brotherhood activities] he came out and joined with them [nascent Islamic State].

Qaradawi’s confession [concerning al-Baghdadi] confirms that the Brotherhood is the spiritual father to every extremist group.

Qaradawi’s revelation was not meant to cast aspersions on the Brotherhood, especially since he is one of its spiritual fathers. More likely, Qaradawi was invoking the idea that imprisoning and suppressing “moderate Islamists” -- namely the Muslim Brotherhood, as occurred most recently in Egypt’s revolution -- will only lead to their “radicalization.” This is a widely accepted theory, especially in the West. Al-Qaeda’s Ayman Zawahiri is another former Brotherhood member who is regularly portrayed as becoming “radicalized” and turning to jihad after being imprisoned in Egypt in 1981. However, any evaluation of the facts of his life demonstrates that he was a “radical” well before he was incarcerated -- he was imprisoned precisely because he was radical.